Most English speakers have a hard time repeating "toy boat" several times in succession. They almost always end up saying "toy boyt," often within 3 or 4 repeats. Russians have no such problem with it.

Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

In Spanish, the trilled R seems to vary with dialect. I once spoke with a lady returned from missionary work in one South American country that swore there were no trilled R's in Spanish. Last I heard she had moved to South Texas near the Mexican border, and I bet she trills them now. Puerto Ricans seem to me to trill everything in addition to R's, and the Tex-Mex I hear trills a lot. Cubans are the most understandable to me, but they also trill R's.

I raised that question because I couldn't trill an r until mumblety years ago. I find it quite easy adjacent to most letter/sounds now, but with others it is still difficult. If I had grown up with hearing and using this sound, there'd be no difficulty. My curiosity is now piqued as to how different language groups affect native speakers in pronouncing tongue twisters or other shibboleths.

Actually the Spanish books I was taught from had both r and rr in the alphabet. One r may have no flutter or a brief one, but the rr requires a solid role. Since the native speakers didn't learn from books...

gailr wrote:Ha! I can say that aloud once in a row. Are there tongue twisters in Russian (or related) languages which don't trip up others?

Tongue-Twisters can be fun. Little did I know that our very own Good Doctor has compiled a significant number of them in many different languages for our delectation, if we know the alphabet used, that is.

If you care to try your hand, or mouth, on them, here they be. If you know any that are missing, there's a link there to supply them.

As for me, all the Russian ones are quite difficult, despite many years of study and life in the country.

Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.